


Be Still My Foolish Heart

by politelydeclined



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Historical References, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Implied Crowley As Raphael, M/M, No beta we fall like Crowley, Pining, That Boy Pines Like A Whole Forest, switching pronouns
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-02-12 19:47:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21481840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politelydeclined/pseuds/politelydeclined
Summary: Or, Important Episodes In The Life Of An Immortal Creature.When you have forever ahead of you, you learn to treasure what really matters.Most of the time, it's a specific angel.
Relationships: Aziraphale (Good Omens)/Others, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens)/Others
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Be Still My Foolish Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy this, more chapters will be coming soon!  
Watch out for implied violence at the end, and for angst all over the place.  
Comments are the sushi to my Aziraphale :))  
P.S. Title from Hozier's "Almost (Sweet Music)"

Brown eyes stare deep into her damned soul, swallowing all the pain they can find and trading it with such a sense of peace as she hasn't felt in over four thousand years.

“Look at me.” The young man pleads, holding her face delicately in his hands. She wants to run away from his eyes, from his gaze – she is hardly pure enough for someone like him to look at-

“_Neshama sheli. _My soul, please.”

She gives in, and lets him see her.

“You are beautiful,” he whispers, like it's some secret promise only meant for her to hear. “You’re beautiful, and you’re so- so _worthy, _I wish you could realize.”

She cries, and he holds her.

* * *

Three months after the Crucifixion, when her grief has lessened – barely, but she is trying to come to terms with it – she finds a Persian man, trying to sell these dark glass lenses. They don't have an actual purpose and are almost too dark to allow vision.

She buys them immediately and hides her eyes.

In the back of her mind, he's there, whispering sweet nothings into her ear.

She can hardly see the road, and as she looks up to all the people walking around her, she finds she cannot see their faces.

_Good._

* * *

He never takes them off. His eyes have adjusted – after all, demons _are_ meant to see in the dark – and he doesn't look like a stumbling drunk anymore.

Just your regular sad drunk.

In Rome, he tries to do his job as quickly as possible. It's been eight years, but he can still remember the faces of the men who-

Nothing good ever comes from those memories. He locks them away, along with days spent talking, questioning, and nights under the stars, joined as one.

He can fool himself, that way. He can pretend he doesn't look for his voice everywhere he goes.

The new emperor is simply appalling, and he hates all about him. The city is corrupt, sin plagues the whole empire – he wants to get sick.

He’s never been a good demon to begin with, but now, he feels more human than ever.

* * *

Aziraphale comforts him. Unknowingly, of course, he soothes his pain over a glass of wine and a plate of frankly disgusting oysters. He reassures him, gives him an anchor, and it comes as a sudden reminder of how intensely in love with the angel he is.

It gives him a small hope. Feeble and scarce, but enough to endure Rome’s dissolution.

He whispers a thank you, and makes it look like uncharacteristic politeness over an opened door.

He gives him a smile, and makes it seem a simple reflex as they sat together.

He laughs, and realizes he hasn't since before Golgotha.

His heart threatens to give up out of sheer happiness and an overwhelming amount of love.

* * *

He likes Hadrian.

Extraordinarily clever, brilliant philosopher, and not as greedy as many of his peers.

He holds his hand as he cries over Antinuous’ body, and lets him stay like that all night.

“You know grief.” He states simply in the morning.

He nods, and the Emperor bows his head slightly. He lets himself blush, knowing that the fact will never leave the tent.

Hadrian doesn't cry on his shoulder after that. Instead, he cries in front of him, refusing to hide his face.

Crowley is so moved that he weeps without even noticing.

* * *

There are lots of saints. All of them swear they know what he wanted, know what he had meant to say.

Almost none of them is even close, but he doesn't fancy being burned alive for witchcraft or heresy or whatever these humans are killing each other for, these days.

A few of them, though, get quite close.

He doesn't care about religion – not just because he is, after all, a demon, but because he was there when most of these things happened, and Noah’s bloody Ark has been all but a miracle. An easy win at best.

Winning is surprisingly easy when you get a tip before the match starts, isn’t it?

Still, he talks to many of them. The saints, that is.

One in particular strikes him.

Completely blind, and with a voice full of wonder as he touches his face whispering “_Raphael._”

* * *

Aziraphale is often busy in Jerusalem, trying to follow every Crusade and contain its effects.

He gets a commendation for his work, and throws up until he can’t anymore.

The angel holds his hair back – he’s letting it grow, since there’s hardly any time to get it styled – and lets Crowley feed him lies about having drunk too much.

He hasn’t touched any alcohol since Hell congratulated him, but nobody needs to acknowledge that.

He thinks about going far away, where the only weapons are those used to fish and hunt, and people seem to be so much calmer.

Aziraphale has to stay, though, so he stays too.

It would hardly be convenient if he were to leave the biggest part of his soul behind as he runs away.

* * *

He doesn’t do horses. They’re hard on the buttocks, he says, and walks. Not quite as fast, but at least his feet will actually try to cooperate, instead of throwing him off _just because_.

He meets the angel again, in France this time, and stares as he rides like he was born with reigns in his hands. He tries not to think about Wessex, and fails.

Winter comes, and it's much colder than it should be. People are dying left and right, and he tries to remember what the desert sun felt like on his scales.

He asks Aziraphale if he can do anything to help, and the angels nods. It’s his first official miracle, and thus the Arrangement is born.

* * *

She walks in the cold halls of a castle, enjoying the way her gown flows behind her. She let her red hair down – though that’s not quite fashionable nowadays – and feels all eyes on her as she enters a room. Her dress is beautiful, and she knows she makes quite the picture with her golden eyes, flaming hair and her pristine white dress.

She tempts men and women alike with a gesture of her hand, and feels quite nothing at all.

She cannot dance as well as other ladies, but men beg her with a glance, and she gives everybody a chance.

Aziraphale visits a few times, and spends the entire night with her. They talk, read, and drink the sweetest wine. For once, she doesn’t feel so hollow.

* * *

Years later, they meet again. Different court, different people, but the memories are still the same.

He goes to get something to drink, and a man she doesn’t know gets close.

Too close.

He touches her, and she doesn’t even find the time to miracle his hands away. Aziraphale is brandishing his sword – not the flaming one, but it still looks quite sharp – and she almost wants to roll her eyes.

If only she wasn’t so scared, she would.

The duel is short, and the angel doesn’t break a sweat.

He will tell his superiors that he defended a fair lady’s honor, and Crowley will say she tempted a man into using violence.

Meanwhile, she will mumble a thank you while he fixes his clothes, and he will shake his head.

“No need to thank me, dear girl. That man deserves Hell.”

She silently agrees, and lets her heart beat furiously in her chest.

* * *

Then, he travels. He meets all kinds of people, and tries to inconvenience them all without actually condemning them. Aziraphale is God knows where, fomenting peace and whatnot.

He feels lonely, even when he’s in someone’s arms. None of them can know, and none of them are his angel.

He inspires poets, and assures Beelzebub that he tempted them into sin.

In reality, he just talked to them.

Eternity crushes him with its inevitability, as he tries to ignore the fact that _he _is most certainly _not_ thinking about him.

* * *

They meet in Italy. They definitely didn’t agree on doing so, merely coming across each other in Florence. Repeatedly.

He gives Aziraphale a copy of Dante’s _Commedia_, and promises he will get him to sign it for him.

They go out for drinks, sometimes, and a drunken angel gives him a hug as they part.

He pretends to not have trembled in his arms, and Aziraphale easily forgets the overwhelming wave of love he felt coming off Crowley.

Some things are better left unsaid, he thinks as he tries to fall asleep later that night.

He remembers times when men would greet each other with kisses, and he would die just to have Aziraphale kiss him again and_ mean it._

* * *

The Plague is terrible, and he spends as much time and energy as he can in those horrifying hospitals, healing who can be healed and taking the pain away from those who are doomed.

He has to go undercover, of course, so he wears a white tunic and lets his hair fall down his shoulders.

In the middle of the night, he walks and heals, unnoticed.

A little boy cries out in his sleep, calling his mother.

She won’t come, he wants to say. _She _won’t come, and he wonders who he’s talking about.

He takes his pain away, and stops long enough to hear him murmur “Raphael… Saint Raphael-” before closing his eyes.

_I wish, _he wants to answer, but doesn’t. Instead, he keeps walking, doing as many miracles as he can bear, until he’s too exhausted to even think straight.

He wishes he was someone else too.

* * *

It gets better, after. He meets with so many interesting people, artists whose conscience was already damned, nobles who never knew their sins were precisely that, and common people whose life ended before it could even begin <strike>no matter how hard he tried to help.</strike>

It doesn’t make him a good person, when he stops in the street to give bread to kids who look like they’ve never eaten before. It doesn’t make him good, slipping a few coins into their pockets with a thought.

If he were good, he’d save them forever, not just for one day.

And with this reasoning in mind, he keeps going as usual. Those kids will probably grow up to be criminals anyway, he says, I gave them the chance to become awful humans.

But right now, they’re alive and fed and for a moment, he feels light again.

* * *

At one point, they get drunk with Aziraphale again. They don’t remember where it happened, but they talked. All night long, until he insisted to walk them back to their house, they talked.

Aziraphale looks different. Almost miserable. When they ask, he brushes it off.

Three hours and lots of drinks later, he confesses.

“Her name was Angelica,” he says, with his gaze fixed somewhere behind Crowley’s shoulder, staring at someone he can't see. “She died a few weeks ago. Influenza, they said. She was gone in a matter of days.”

They put their hand on his shoulder and mourn with him.

“I think we weren’t meant to love humans like this.” He says after a while, downing another glass of wine.

“Probably not,” they agree. “But isn’t it so sweet when you let it happen?”

Aziraphale nods, and said thank you without a single word.

* * *

Spain is interesting, to say the least. He likes the culture there, takes him back to many Arabian nights when the world was young and his eyes were unhidden.

He spends days just walking, looking at people moving all around him. He wonders where the angel is, knowing that he could reach him with a single thought. He doesn’t, and lets the world move.

He stays there for a while, enjoying the music and the arts. Then, everybody seems to change, becoming less and less accepting of those who are different.

He leaves immediately, as he usually does.

* * *

He gets positively wasted – it’s becoming kind of a constant, and maybe it should worry him more than it is – and he keeps doing so until he feels like he’ll discorporate, and then some more.

Aziraphale sits next to him in blessed silence, knowing perfectly that nothing he can do will help, not unless he takes that blasted commendation and tells Beelzebub exactly where they can shove it.

Not very angelic, but then again, he was never that angelic to start with.

They’ve cried together many times now, so there is very little shame in letting go.

“I hate humans.”

“No, you don’t,” Aziraphale corrects him gently, taking his hand as he tries to give some comfort to the poor fellow.

“No I don’t,” he admits, lowering his head.

* * *

He thinks about Angelica again, sometimes, and whispers her name into the ear of a promising poet. He will make sure she will be remembered, and he can already see Aziraphale’s tears.

He feels so in love, when he thinks about the angel. Even though they have both taken many mortal lovers during their lives, he cannot honestly say any of them has ever felt quite as real as him. Some did come close, but they share things that cannot be put into words, and that’s not something he can easily forget.

He craves more of their conversations, more of the way they switch between languages, dead and alive, as they talk. They end up sounding like a reinterpretation of the Tower of Babel, but they _understand _each other.

He decides to go visit him, and packs his things.

* * *

In London, Aziraphale is busy. Very much so, with everything that’s going on, and he has little time to spare – no time for friendly-but-not-too-much drinks and long talks.

It’s okay, he understands. Besides, all that free time gives him a chance to explore the city by himself.

As he wanders one day, he meets a wickedly brilliant young man named Marlowe. He’s fascinating, with his charm and his sharp tongue, and he has something definitely _demonic _about him. He likes Crowley’s long hair and his wit.

He thinks he could love him, with time.

There is no time, though. He dies too soon, in a stupid brawl, and Crowley is alone again.

He grows a beard that he’s positive Kit would have hated, and for some reason, he keeps it.

He doesn’t tell the angel about it, though. About their nights together, about that weird almost-there connection that they shared. Aziraphale is consorting with some other playwright, and he’s not sure how he feels about it.

He doesn’t mourn Kit. He doesn’t allow himself to.

* * *

After Edinburgh, they decide to make an actual, official Arrangement. Aziraphale fidgets in his seat, but shows a determined look.

“I hope this doesn’t awaken anything demonic in me,” he half-jokes over a glass of wine.

Crowley laughs, before looking at him with soft eyes. “You would make a great demon, though.”

The angel doesn’t get angry, and simply makes sure his drink will spill all over his shirt. “Don’t get me started, you serpent.”

It takes all of Crowley’s willpower, as he cleans his clothes, to remember that he does most definitely _not_ mean it in an affectionate way.

He wants to hide his face in his neck and sleep for a decade.

* * *

“Happy 5600th anniversary, angel.”

Aziraphale is delighted. They give each other gifts – never something too incriminating, too suspicious. It’s always something simple but tasteful, something they both know the other will enjoy.

Crowley gets him a chess set he bought in China back in the 13th century, and the angel hands him a book.

“It’s about Botany,” he explains, pointing to the beautiful, hand-drawn images. “I think you could be good with plants.”

“Careful, now. Might think you want to frame me for witchcraft,” He says playfully, caressing the spine of the book with affection. He doesn’t own many books – his eyes are a curse when it comes to reading – but the few he does have are his most treasured possession.

All of them are a gift from Aziraphale, but he doesn’t need to deal with that right now.

* * *

He gets discorporated at the back of an alley, years later.

He doesn’t tell the angel what happened, no matter how much he asks. He goes on with his life, pretending he doesn’t shy away from Aziraphale’s touch every time he gets close, and that he doesn’t flinch when he moves too quickly.

He’s immortal, and he’s been around since the beginning of time.

It was bound to happen, he tells himself. You’re lucky it took this long.

He stays in bed for a while, letting the angel take care of his work for a while.

He knows Aziraphale knows, but he tries to humor himself.

After a few weeks of his isolation, a note slips under his door.

_It’s going to be alright. -A._

He puts it in one of his books, and walks out of the door.

After all, it is time he went back to his evil deeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a link to my [tumblr](https://ineffablequeers.tumblr.com/)  
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